1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to audio receptacle connectors, and more particularly to an audio receptacle connector having compression type terminals adapted to mate with an audio plug for audio signal transmission.
2. Description of Related Art
Audio receptacle connectors have been widely employed in audio-visual products. Their primary function is to transmit audio signal between two systems. In recent years, a wide variety of portable electrical products (e.g., mobile phones, PDA, MP3s, laptop computers, etc.) are available. Thus, application of the audio receptacle connectors in these products becomes more important. Each electrical product has its own exclusively applicable audio receptacle connector. For such products, please refer to U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,346,013 and 6,368,156. The conventional audio receptacle connectors are soldered to the printed circuit board (PCB) via through-holes or mounted on the PCB by surface mounting (SMT). However, it is not appropriate for a portable electrical product having limited internal space or a small PCB. On the other hand, generally speaking, most of the construction of SMT connector terminals are relatively complex and need several stamping processes to produce. And in turn, it needs several sets of relatively complex molds in the manufacturing process, resulting in an increase of the production cost. Further, in the known SMT audio connectors, the fastening of the grounding terminal and the insulative housing is still done by the known through-hole soldering connectors. That is, engage with each other by snapping the snapping hole on the terminal with the convex piece on the housing. However, such fastening is not reliable. As a result, it is easy to disengage in response to collision. Moreover, the fastening can increase the consumption of materials of terminal and insulative housing. And in turn, the manufacturing cost is increased significantly.
In addition, the product applied in a different environment has a different requirement about the insertion force of the receptacle connector, especially, in the portable devices. Thus, a factor of applying the product in different environment must be considered since the required insertion force is not the same. In the above-mentioned SMT terminal construction, the required insertion force for the mating receptacle connector is evenly shared by the terminals. If the insertion force increases or decreases, the molds must be redesigned or reselect materials, resulting in a further increase of the manufacturing cost.
Moreover, the known audio receptacle connector has a single diameter. After many times of insertion the terminals are easy to wear and their resilience may degrade significantly. This is because the body of the audio plug rubs the terminals repeatedly. Thus, it is desirable to provide an improved audio receptacle connector in order to overcome the inadequacies of the prior art.